Serco Paid Millions Over Budget for West Australia Hospital with No Patientsby Fatima Hansia, CorpWatch BlogMarch 11th, 2014Some 230 staff are being paid to work at the new Fiona Stanley Hospital in West Australia, even though it will not open to patients till March 2015. The project has been labeled a “privatization disaster” and Serco, the contractor, has come under fire for the soaring costs.

Rurelec Wins Compensation for Bolivia Nationalization, But Little Profitby Richard Smallteacher, CorpWatch BlogFebruary 10th, 2014Bolivia has been ordered to pay $41 million to Rurelec, a UK energy company, in compensation for nationalizing the Guaracachi power plant in May 2010. The order represents a small profit for Rurelec which bought a 50.1 percent stake in 2006 but substantially less than what the company demanded.

Spanish Consortium Threatens to Stop Panama Canal Expansionby Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch BlogJanuary 6th, 2014Sacyr, the Spanish construction giant, has threatened to halt work on the expansion of the Panama canal unless it is paid an extra $1.6 billion. The company leads a consortium that won the 2009 contract after bidding to do the job for $1.1 billion less than the next bidder.

Police Attack Palm Oil Protestors in Sierra Leoneby Richard Smallteacher, CorpWatch BlogDecember 10th, 2013Sierra Leone police opened fire on a group of protestors who were demonstrating against a palm oil plantation in the southern province of Pujehun. The project is being developed by Societe Financiere des Caoutchoucs (Socfin), a French agri-business giant.

U.S. Security Checks Contractor Has Record of Rushing Investigationsby Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch BlogSeptember 27th, 2013U.S. Investigations Services (USIS), the company that signed off on a background check into Aaron Alexis, the military contractor who shot 12 people dead on a U.S. Navy base in Washington DC last week, has a record of rushing investigations, according to a number of former employees.

Privatization Profiteers from Pinochet’s Chile May Yet Face Prisonby Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch BlogSeptember 17th, 2013Julio Ponce, the billionaire owner of Sociedad Quimica & Minera de Chile (SQM), faces ten years in prison for insider trading. A beneficiary of former dictator General Augusto Pinochet, Ponce is charged with buying company shares at below market prices and selling them at a profit.

Sierra Leone Farmers Evicted for Sugarcane Biofuel Plantationsby Jennifer Kennedy, CorpWatch BlogMarch 5th, 2013Addax Bioenergy, a Swiss energy company, is jeopardizing the livelihoods of thousands of subsistence farmers in order to export ethanol made from sugarcane grown in Sierra Leone, according to the Sierra Leone Network on the Right to Food and Brot Für Alle, an NGO based in Switzerland.

Capita Bungles Deportation of Irregular Migrants in UKby Lily Smith, CorpWatch BlogFebruary 18th, 2013Capita, a UK outsourcing company, sent text messages to thousands of people in the UK, asking them to leave the country, as part of a privatized deportation scheme. Unfortunately hundreds of people that they targeted were in the country legally.

Contractors Alleged to Abuse Alcohol, Drugs, Guns at Parties In Afghanistanby Puck Lo, CorpWatch BlogNovember 14th, 2012Jorge Scientific Corporation, a military contractor with nearly a billion dollars in U.S. government contracts, is being sued by former employees for “shocking misconduct” in Afghanistan. The charges include illegal and reckless use of firearms, abusing alcohol and drugs and billing the government for property destroyed during raucous parties.

Indigenous Protestors Against Guatemala Energy Company Targetedby Jennifer Kennedy, CorpWatch BlogNovember 10th, 2012Six demonstrators were killed and dozens injured when the Guatemalan military fired into a group of indigenous Maya-K'iche' gathered on the Inter-American highway to protest rising electricity charges from Energuate, a major national power company owned by a private equity firm created by the UK government.

UK Pathology Labs Suffer In Quality Under Serco Managementby Puck Lo, CorpWatch BlogOctober 24th, 2012Privatization of major medical laboratories from the National Hospital Service (NHS) in Britain has led to a dramatic decline in service quality, according to a “Transforming Pathology, the Serco way,” a recent report from UK-based researchers Corporate Watch.

Private Prison for Asylum Seekers on Pacific Islandby Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch BlogSeptember 17th, 2012Transfield Services, an Australian logistics company that provides services to the mining and oil industry among others, has won a $25.9 million contract from the government of Australia to run a detention center for asylum seekers in the Pacific island nation of Nauru.

Malaysian Water Company Claims To Have Run Dryby Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch BlogAugust 1st, 2012Syabas, a private water company in Malaysia, has threatened to start water rationing in the state of Selangor after claiming that it had almost no water reserves left. Critics claim that the threat is a ploy to win more lucrative contracts and to favor a rival political party.

Court to Hear Challenge to Myriad’s Human Gene Patentby Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch BlogJuly 19th, 2012Should a private company be allowed to patent isolated human genes? A lawsuit to be heard Friday pits Myriad Genetics of Utah against the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Myriad wants to be the exclusive U.S. commercial provider of genetic screening tests for breast cancer or ovarian cancer.

Repsol Sues Argentina for $10 Billion Over YPF Nationalizationby Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero, CorpWatch BlogMay 18th, 2012Repsol, a multinational based in Spain, has brought a class action lawsuit in New York courts against the Argentine government for the re-nationalization of YPF, the former Argentine state oil company. Environmentalists question both parties over the impact of the company.

Elsevier Versus Wikipedia: Academics Revolt Against Giant Publisherby Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch BlogMay 11th, 2012Over 11,000 academics have pledged to boycott Elsevier, the Dutch publishing giant, for profiting off their work and making it unavailable to the general public. Now Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, plans to turn the world of corporate academic publishing on its head.

Thorny Business: Ethiopian Rose Exports To Europeby Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch BlogMarch 5th, 2012Karuturi Global and Saudi Star have leased thousands of hectares of land from the Ethiopian government for agricultural development. Critics says these projects have displaced traditional farmers and subsistence crops.

U.S. Congressional Wartime Commission Targets Armed Contractorsby Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatchJune 23rd, 2010This week, almost a decade after the U.S. "War on Terror" began, the Commission on Wartime Contracting held two days of hearings into the role of private contractors in conducting and supporting war. The Congressional witness table included Aegis, DynCorp and Triple Canopy. Curiously, Blackwater was not called; and the CEO of Torres Advanced Enterprise Solutions failed to appear.

Afghanistan, Inc.: A CorpWatch Investigative Report (2006)by Fariba Nawa, Special to CorpWatchApril 30th, 2010The recent boom in humanitarian aid has an underbelly largely invisible to charity sector outsiders. “Easy money: the great aid scam," packs a biting critique (Linda Polman, The Sunday Times Online, April 25).
In 2006, CorpWatch’s "Afghanistan, Inc.", cited by Polman, drilled down on reconstruction dollars, in what’s become known as “Afghaniscam.” We bring our report to you again.

Afghanistan Spy Contract Goes Sour for Pentagonby Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch March 16th, 2010Mike Furlong, a top Pentagon official, is alleged to have hired a company called International Media Ventures to supply information for drone strikes and assassinations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to a complaint filed by the CIA and revealed by the New York Times on March 15.